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Speaker Bios

Jonathan Albright

Jonathan Albright is the director of research at Columbia University's Tow Center for Digital Journalism, and an award-nominated data journalist. His work focuses on the interface of communication, culture, and technology. He examines the thematic analysis of online and socially mediated news events, misinformation/propaganda, and media attention trends, creative data-driven journalistic methods, and informational visual storytelling. Additionally, he is the co-author of Pew Internet’s recent report "The Future of Free Speech, Trolls, Anonymity and Fake News Online," and a contributor to The Guardian, Medium, The Huffington Post. Previously, he worked for Yahoo, Google, and McClatchy. BioVideoArticles.

Matthew A. Baum (Ph.D., UC San Diego, 2000) is the Marvin Kalb Professor of Global Communications and Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and Department of Government. Full bio.

Adam Berinsky

Adam Berinsky is the Mitsui Professor of Political Science and Director, MIT Political Experiments Research Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Oskari Eronen is Head for Policy & Learning at Crisis Management Initiative (CMI). He heads a unit responsible for development of effective methodologies for mediation, including planning, monitoring, evaluation and learning, and offers CMI’s leadership advisory support to strategic decision-making, fundraising and partnerships. He has 12 years of experience in international conflict management and peace mediation, and is specialized in process design, effectiveness and learning. Prior to joining CMI, he served as Adviser at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, where his responsibilities included policy advice on international security and development policies. He has also been deployed to Afghanistan as Political Adviser in the International Security Assistance Force operation.

Richard Harknett

Dr. Richard J. Harknett is Professor and Head of the Department of Political Science at the University of Cincinnati (UC). He is the author of over fifty publications in the area of international relations theory and international security studies. In 2017, he served as the inaugural US-UK Fulbright Scholar in Cybersecurity, University of Oxford, United Kingdom and in 2016 as the first scholar-in-residence at US Cyber Command and National Security Agency. He has provided invited lectures in seven countries and numerous presentations to government agencies, including the US Defense and State Departments and provided briefings to Congressional offices on Capitol Hill. He has testified on cybersecurity to the Ohio State Legislature and served as the Governor’s appointee on the State of Ohio’s Cybersecurity, Education, and Economic Development Council while contributing to the writing of Ohio’s Cybersecurity Strategy.

He was selected in 2001 as Fulbright Professor of International Relations at the Diplomatic Academy, Vienna, Austria where he continues to hold a professorial lectureship. Prof. Harknett has been named the Boyd-Lubker Visiting Scholar at Western Kentucky University, the Edith C. Alexander Distinguished Teaching Professor and the Distinguished Service Professor in McMicken College, UC, the Faculty Awardee for Exemplary Contributions in Service to the University, UC, and was the recipient of the State of Ohio Faculty Innovator award. He has served as Chair of the University Faculty and Chair of the Charles Phelps Taft Research Center at UC. He earned his PhD from The Johns Hopkins University and BA from Villanova University. Full bio.

Briony Swire-Thompson is a postdoctoral researcher at Northeastern University’s Network Science Institute and a fellow at the Harvard Institute for Quantitative Social Sciences. Her research investigates what drives belief in inaccurate information, why certain individuals are predisposed to refrain from belief change even in the face of corrective evidence, and how corrections can be designed to maximize impact. Swire-Thompson’s PhD is in psychological science. Prior to joining Professor Lazer’s Lab, she was with the Cognitive Science Laboratories at the University of Western Australia and was a Fulbright scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s political science department. Full bio.

Jed Willard​

Jed Willard is Director of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Center for Global Engagement at Adams House, Harvard University. The FDR Center honors the 32nd American President’s legacy by pursuing solutions to current global challenges while keeping in mind their historical origins. Over the past decade, Willard has been pleased to consult to a number of governments and other international actors, helping them to understand prevalent and emerging narratives – the drivers of public opinion and sentiment – and creating strategies and structures to effectively engage citizens around the globe. His current efforts focus on adaptation to climate change, coping with disinformation, and revitalizing faith in liberal democracy.

Willard is a native of New Orleans, with a Bachelors Degree in History and a Masters Degree in Public Administration from Harvard.